


Leave Unsaid Unspoken

by kamiyas



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, bella/edward and edward/tanya in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamiyas/pseuds/kamiyas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Jacob sleeps next to her, she traces hearts across his bare skin. It’s the closest thing she has to telling him she loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave Unsaid Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Between the Lines' by Sara Bareilles. Most of this was inspired by that song and the lyrics included are from it. I'm not really sure how I feel about this; I really love parts of it, but other parts are just meh to me. Anyway, on with the show.

  
Edward was everything to her once. But that was lost along with her heartbeat. Now that she’s cold and damned to eternal night and bloodlust, she craves nothing more than warmth and _the_ sun.  
(Even knowing exactly what she needs, she refuses to think the word _my_ in that thought, instead substituting it with an italicized and emphasized _the_.)

 

  
Edward is for days, when the sun in the sky is almost enough to replace _the_ sun. Jacob is for nights, when the moon could remind her of Edward if she would let it. The moon is for beaches bleached of color, scratches down broad, brown shoulders.  
As he whispers her name above her, she can almost pretend that what she’s doing isn’t wrong.

 

  
Edward knows and Bella doesn’t care. He would have known sooner if his wish had been granted and he could read her mind now that they’re the same species. As it is, he only finds out when Bella can’t care enough to wash away the scent anymore.  
Read (between the lines): Edward knows and Edward doesn’t care. Not anymore. Not now that romance is dead.  


 

  
She knocks on his door late at night--early in the morning--and he opens it automatically, with a small, expectant smile. She doesn’t come to his home every night, but when she does, he knows before she’s there.  
“Does he know you’re here?” he asks.  
“Of course, he does.”  
She attempts to divert him by running her fingers under his t-shirt. The diversion seems to work and he pulls her outside, down to the beach.  
(Truthfully, the diversion doesn’t work. Jacob still remembers his question and her answer. He doesn’t feel guilty, though. Not once, in the past year that this has been going on, has Jacob felt guilty about what they’re doing. Because it should have been this way, anyway.)  
As she pulls him over her and he pushes into her again, Jacob can’t stop himself from imagining her in this exact position with Edward in the daylight. (Yes, he can, if he really feels like it, but that‘s him--a masochistic idiot.)  
He shudders over top of her and bites his lip. A drop of blood is drawn to the surface of the skin there. He licks it away before Bella can see it and presses his lips together until the shallow cut is healed.  
He misses the days when he wasn’t the one having to be careful about getting hurt. He wishes they could have been together like this then, before the tables were flipped.  
But that was before she was turned and didn’t know what she wanted yet.

 

  
As Jacob sleeps next to her, she traces hearts across his bare skin. It’s the closest thing she has to telling him she loves him. She sighs and rolls over, snuggling in closer to Jacob’s body that almost makes her feel warm.  
Almost.  
She closes her eyes and pretends for a moment that she can still sleep. Can still dream. It’s almost hard to stop herself from comparing the two of them to a fictional couple. At least, a fictional couple in her mind.  
(Did anyone really believe that Lizzie could stay away from Wickham for long?)  
But she gave up literary references some time ago, before she went back into Jacob’s life, about the time she stopped trying to parallel her life to anything. Except maybe Hell.

 

  
Bella was always sort of into the doomed relationships in books. Hermione with Ron just didn’t have the same appeal to her as Hermione with Harry. She had a thing of assuming characters in books just had affairs with the ones they weren’t with as soon as the book was over.  
Or maybe that was just her story.

 

  
When Bella goes home in the morning, Tanya is just leaving, looking like strawberry curls and sex. Edward is in the kitchen they never use. He remains expressionless as Bella asks him what Tanya was doing leaving their house (she can’t bear to call it a home anymore; a home implies love and some level of comfort and the only place she has that at is a little red house in La Push) at so early in the morning.  
“What was I supposed to do, Bella? I couldn’t handle the loneliness anymore.”  
“How long?”  
Edward sighs. “Not long. Two months, three.”  
Bella nods and makes to exit the room.  
“I never should have turned you,” she hears Edward whisper to the silence as she walks away.  
“No,” she agrees. “You shouldn’t have.”  
(Time to tell me the truth)

 

  
She stays with Jacob into the sunlight the next day. It feels so right to finally reconcile the sun with _her_ sun. The only sun she’s ever known. Jacob is all smiles as he pulls her closer to his body.  
“You’ve never stayed this long before.”  
She elbows him in the ribs, careful not to cause him any more pain. “Don’t jinx it, Jake.”  
But she smiles too. They both know that she’ll leave eventually. Go back to him. But for now, this is enough.  
“I love you, Bella,” Jacob mumbles into her shoulder as he falls asleep.  
She waits until he’s completely under before responding.  
“I love you, too, Jacob.” _I’ve always loved you. Even before I knew._

 

  
 _Ashes, ashes._  
“You’ll have to grow up eventually, you know.”  
“Not if I don’t want to.”  
Bella laughs. “What, are you going to be like Peter Pan? The boy who never grows up?”  
“I’ll stay this way if it means being with you. I'll never stop shifting. I’ll stay this way forever.”  
 _We all fall down._

 

  
Edward doesn’t show any response when she comes back to the house. She sits across from him at the table. They stare at each other for a long time, neither one saying anything.  
What is there to say?  
They both know they’ll just continue their sick little game of hating each other, but never leaving; sordid affairs on the side.  
What is there to say?

 

  
What Edward didn’t say before he changed her, but probably should have:  
That boy dreams of you every single night and can’t imagine life without you. I’d be cruel to take you away from him.  
Just because I promise to love you forever, doesn’t make it true.  
You love me, but not as much as that boy who can give you the world. And that’s just not good enough.

 

  
It continues for another year without any change. Bella has Jacob; Edward has Tanya; during the day they have no one but each other.  
The loneliness is opressive.

 

  
If Bella could cry in her new life, it would be for Jacob. The boy that dreams of her every single night and can’t imagine life without her. She would cry for what she does to him and can’t force herself to quit doing.  
(It’s not a lie. Bella cannot possibly imagine life--or whatever the hell this is--without Jacob. It’s not a matter of she could make herself stop if she wanted to. Because there’s no way she could make herself stop. Jacob is a need. The only thing keeping her from the cold, dark abyss of _after_.)

 

_Memory is cruel_  
 _Queen of attention to details_  
 _Defending intentions, yet he failed_  
 _Until now, he told me her name_  
 _It sounded familiar in a way_  
 _I could have sworn I’d heard him_  
 _Say it ten-thousand times_  
 _Oh, if only I had been listening_

 

If Bella could cry in her new life, it would be for Leah. The girl that tries to fill two people’s voids at once and fails miserably, but keeps at it. She can imagine only too clearly the way Leah would cry out as Jacob pushed into her and called her Bella; the way Leah would call him Sam and then leave as soon as it was over. (She doesn’t blame Jacob. Once upon a time, she would have been overcome with blinding fury and jealousy, but now, things have changed. And she’s only upset that Jacob is this damaged because of her.)

 

  
Edward never meant to stop loving Bella. It was an accident. But sometime after he changed her, they fell apart. Bella left for inordinate amounts of time and Edward knew exactly where she was. At the reservation with that boy. Bella thinks he didn’t know until she got lazy, but he knew from the beginning. Even though she took time to carefully wash away the smell before coming back, Edward knew.  
He knew and couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.

 

  
When she’s with Jacob, time passes differently. By which she means, time actually _means_ something. It doesn’t when she’s away from him. It all passes in a blur.  
But with Jacob, every single moment stands out; she remembers every word said and every kiss given. (She tries to not to think why that’s ironic.)  
She can even remember every single moment from _before_ , even though the rest of her human memories are slowly slipping away. She can recall in perfect detail the moments they shared in Jacob’s tiny garage, being reckless in such a human way.  
She misses being reckless in human ways. She knows Jacob misses it, too. But things unfolded and now they can’t be undone. They’re stuck with being mythical creatures, neither of which should exist.

 

Why, oh why, couldn’t the world have been the way it was meant to be? That’s all Bella ever thinks about. How it could have been.

 

  
Bella used to want Edward to care. She wanted him to be furious and jealous of the time she spent with Jacob. But that was back when she was still human. Now, she could care less that he could care less. All she cares about is that Tanya is gone, or at least leaving, when she comes back, not that she has any physical contact with Edward these days anyway.  
But one day, she comes back and Tanya is still there. Not just about to leave, but there with the intent of not leaving for a while; lounging lazily on the couch, watching the news.  
“Hey, Bella,” Tanya calls in a very relaxed manner when she notices her come in.  
“Hey, Tanya,” Bella replies, just as casually. And then she goes to pack her things. 

 

  
When she appears at Jacob’s door, with all her things, at least the things that matter, in two navy suitcases, he doesn’t even blink.  
He knew she’d choose just him eventually. And as he lets her in his home (their home, he can’t help but think) and shows her where to put her stuff, he knows that it is finally just him.

 

 _Just him_ , Bella thinks to herself, as she settles into life with Jacob. _Just him_.


End file.
